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On the title track to The Mynabirds’ latest, Laura Burhenn instructs her listeners to “put your black boots on.” It’s just one of many empowering calls to arms that Burhenn embraces on Generals, which finds the band successfully forging a new path with plenty of backbeat and backbone. It seems Burhenn has shed a new skin since the pop whimsy of her previous duo, Georgie James, and the lighter, folksier Mynabirds debut, What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood. In their place, we get Dead Weather–style blues-rockers like “Wolf Mother” and “Disaster” and the electro anxiety of tracks like “Radiator Sister” and “Body of Work.” The album ends with “Greatest Revenge,” combining a Motown sway with Burhenn’s frustration: “What happened to our chivalry?” she sings. It seems The Mynabirds have lost innocence in exchange for an angry confidence and newfound strength.

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